This day in history, looks like there is going to be a special on the

Bhopal/Union Carbide chemical spill that killed 2000 immediately and injured 600,000 long term. Didn't shrubbie get UC off the hook by signing some sort of illegal decree that reparations were not in order or some such rubbish???

release regulations.

http://thinkprogress.org/?tag=Environment
The Bush administration is commemorating the event in typical fashion: by rolling back the signature post-Bhopal achievement limiting toxic releases in the United States.

The EPA has proposed gutting the Toxics Release Inventory, which was established in Bhopal’s aftermath to encourage the disclosure of data on industrial toxic releases. (The EPA is now accepting public comments on the TRI rule change.) Under this proposal, thousands of chemical facilities would be exempt from reporting their toxic releases and data would be disclosed only every other year; for whole years at a time, we would have no data at all on the country’s toxic releases.

Critically, Bush officials are proposing rolling back these regulations in the face of incredible gains under TRI. Since the program’s inception, releases of the original 299 chemicals tracked by the inventory have plummeted nearly 60 percent. TRI data has empowered environmental groups, the press, and concerned citizens to expose toxic dangers and hold chemical facilities and government accountable for improving public safety.



http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0715-07.htm
Published on Monday, July 15, 2002 by CommonDreams.org
Justice for Bhopal:
Corporate Crimes and Their Bodycount
by Rahul Mahajan

Recently, Americans have been focused on corporate crimes that cheated stockholders and taxpayers out of money to benefit executives and politicians.

This week we must focus on a crime that cost thousands their lives, as executives and politicians try to cut a deal to escape what little accountability remains.

To persuade us of its importance, Rashida Bi -- one victim of that corporate crime -- is risking her life on hunger strike (for constant updates on the hunger strike, as well as details about the strikers' demands, see http://www.bhopal.net/hunger-index.html).

The story began goes back to the 1984 Union Carbide accident in Bhopal, India, which released a cloud of methyl isocyanate (MIC), hydrogen cyanide, and other toxins. Somewhere between 4000 and 8000 people died at the time, and victims' advocates estimate that in total over 20,000 have died as a result of this largest industrial accident ever, with 150,000 suffering continuing injuries and medical problems.

The cause was extreme corporate malfeasance. The plant was not up to minimal Union Carbide safety standards -- large quantities of MIC were unwisely stored in a heavily populated area, the refrigeration unit for the MIC (which is supposed to kept at temperatures below 32 F) was deliberately kept turned off to save $40 per day in Freon costs, the safety systems were dismantled, and the alarm system was turned off. This even though the same plant had earlier suffered potentially lethal accidental releases of gases like the deadly nerve agent phosgene. Both civil and criminal charges were filed, including a charge of culpable homicide against Warren Anderson, then Carbide's CEO.

http://www.motherjones.com/arts/qa/2005/03/yes_men.html
On December 3, Dow Chemical "spokesman" Jude Finisterra appeared on the BBC to make an astonishing announcement: His company, now parent to Union Carbide, would mark the 20th anniversary of the lethal gas leak in Bhopal, India, which killed 20,000 and injured 120,000, by paying out $12 billion to the survivors—"simply because it is the right thing to do." Unbelievable? Sure it was. Within a few hours, Finisterra had been unmasked as an impostor, while the real Dow quickly reiterated that it wouldn't give a single rupee to the people of Bhopal—cementing its reputation as a corporate grinch.

Chalk up another one for the Yes Men. Equipped with absurd aliases, cheap suits, and official-looking websites, Andy Bichlbaum (a.k.a. Finisterra) and his coconspirator, Mike Bonanno (above right), have posed as officials from the World Trade Organization, McDonald's, and even the Bush campaign. Rather than being exposed as frauds, the Yes Men and their crackpot proposals—from recycling human waste into fast food to using global warming as a weapon against the French—are often met with approval from unsuspecting audiences.